THE TWELFTH TALE OF THE MERRY MEN OF GOTHAM
One very fine summer’s day, the men of Gotham were all sitting on the village green, supping ale and dozing in the sun. Now it just happened to be rent day, when they were supposed to make the journey into Bexhill to pay their rent to their landlord. They were annoyed at this, for it was far to hot a day to go tramping through the lanes. So they began to discuss different ways of getting the rent to their landlord.
Then one man remembered that he’d caught a hare in a trap that morning and he had been going to keep him and fatten it up for the pot.
‘He could carry the rent to Bexhill for us,’ said the man ‘For he’s very quick-footed and would have it there in no time.’ They all thought this an excellent idea. One fellow had a soft leather drawstring purse that could be tied around the hare’s neck and they all put their rent money in there. Another fellow who could write tore a blank page from the back of his prayer book and wrote all their names upon it and explained that this money was their rent. Then he folded the note, put the landlord’s address on the front and placed it in the purse.
They fetched the hare, tied the purse around it’s neck and gave it very clear instructions about where to find the landlord’s office in Bexhill, telling it to go east, through Sidley and down the London Road, and to commend them to the landlord and give him their rent. As soon as they put the hare on the ground and released her, she tore away at high speed but in the wrong direction.
This puzzled the men and were worried that she’d gone the wrong way. One old man, considered by many to be very wise, had sat puffing on his pipe and watching all this. He shook his head slowly, took his pipe out of his mouth and called to them men,
‘Of course she didn’t head off in the direction you told her. She’s a hare. She won’t follow the lanes as you and I would. She’ll be taking a short-cut over the fields, and will get there quicker by cutting through Little Common’
Of course she would, the men agreed, as they happily sat back down on the village green to continue their interrupted dozing in the sunshine.